Dana Blatte
Idolatry & Other Crimes
This is how you kill
a viper. How a uniform and a gun
can change a man for better
or for worse. There is
no recoil to voice my death —
I choke my opiates down and strangle
a serpent. Necklaced
and defanged. How a gun can free
a man. How a uniform can skip
a stone. There is no way to hide
goodbye. Silenced yet full
of things to say. Drugs
to make, languages to slaughter.
The man pulls the gun and there is
no sound. No funeral befit a viper.
I lose
my fangs on a daughter yet
to strike. Here I am, angling
a voice. Freeing a language
of blood and all the places
where our wounds hold no stones, where we swallow
our tails and slick goodbyes. Silenced
yet deathless — this is how
you change a man for good.
a viper. How a uniform and a gun
can change a man for better
or for worse. There is
no recoil to voice my death —
I choke my opiates down and strangle
a serpent. Necklaced
and defanged. How a gun can free
a man. How a uniform can skip
a stone. There is no way to hide
goodbye. Silenced yet full
of things to say. Drugs
to make, languages to slaughter.
The man pulls the gun and there is
no sound. No funeral befit a viper.
I lose
my fangs on a daughter yet
to strike. Here I am, angling
a voice. Freeing a language
of blood and all the places
where our wounds hold no stones, where we swallow
our tails and slick goodbyes. Silenced
yet deathless — this is how
you change a man for good.
Biography
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Dana Blatte (she/her) is a sixteen-year-old from Massachusetts. Her work is published or forthcoming in Fractured Lit, Parentheses Journal, perhappened mag, and more. In addition to writing, she is passionate about language learning, illustration, and taste-testing vegetarians snacks. You can find her on Twitter @infflorescence.
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